Mae and Dean didn't get much else done during the day. Sam was a bit more ambulatory, deciding he would prefer sleeping somewhere other than the living room sofa. Mae helped set him up comfortably in the bedroom. They finished the laundry, without further escapades there. With the main floor unoccupied however, Dean didn't waste time checking off the kitchen and living room of his list of places he and Mae had sex. Dean was impressed with the record he and the pretty redhead were setting and he wasn't sure they were done yet. It was fun. Reality didn't hesitate in trying to dampen his spirits though.
He knew without Sam in his current state or their pseudo-stalemate with the kitsune that they probably wouldn't have had this much time together with nothing more interesting to do but eat and have sex. And they didn't know things with Sam or the kitsune were anywhere near resolved. That put a damper on things.
Dean could admit he might have been distracting himself to keep his mind off all that and then some. Their last two jobs hadn't been particularly difficult but left him thinking about way too many things. Things he didn't really want to think about. Mae was a good distraction, probably not the worst he could have occupied himself with, given his options. Was she a distraction? He knew more about her than any woman he had ever been with, and they were more themselves together than they had ever been. Maybe this is just what it was like to have a girlfriend. Or whatever she was.
Dean had never been one for labels, but regardless, he had no intention of letting her go again. She was smart, funny, and tough. That was something he admired about her. As he walked into the living room, he saw his girl seated at the kitchen table with her laptop and a notebook. Mae tossed a glance back at him as he picked up the remote and turned the TV back on. She smiled softly at him before turning her attention back to her screen.
She meant to be scanning papers, looking up possible jobs they'd take next. Her eyes weren't focused on anything in particular however. She bit her lip, thinking. as she bounced her pen idly. Her thoughts wandered back to what the kitsune had suggested. She wasn't human, or at least not totally human. It made no more sense now than it did then. But so far, it seemed to have kept its word. She thought that it was trying to manipulate her less now than she did before it left Sam. It did know something, sense something about her, and it was incapable of fully possessing her. Maybe it was telling the truth. What she did with that, she didn't know.
Would Sam remember what it said to her or more importantly why? Was she like Sam, with some set of mystery powers? She couldn't see the future or move things with her mind. But she did have some kind of vision, of a fashion. Just the one really. Whoever, or whatever, was the old woman that kept appearing to her. It wasn't a particularly useful special ability if it was one. It could just as likely be a brain tumor causing her to hallucinate. At the same time, it was too difficult to completely ignore the kitsune's claim.
She didn't know her parents. She was, for all intents and purposes, a foundling. She could be anything, brought in by Bobby under the guise of being his niece. The story she grew up with, the one she believed could have just been a story. If she wasn't human, what was she? If she wasn't human, did Bobby know? Did John know? Did other hunters know? Was she in just as much danger from the ones who saw the world in black and white as this kitsune would be with someone else? Maybe no one else knew except for her and the kitsune that now apparently lived in her back yard.
A frown gathered on Dean's face as he watched her. At first, he thought she'd join him. Since arriving at her house, they hadn't spent much time physically apart and he liked just being near her. When she hadn't, he figured she was deep in her task but then noticed she wasn't making notes, wasn't clicking through anything on her screen.
Dean placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned down to kiss her temple. She reacted on instinct, swiping her hand backward and jabbed the pen into his stomach. "Mabe, did you just try to...pen me in the gut?" He laughed.
"You startled me." She relaxed, dropping her arm to the side.
"Yeah, you're barely here. You must have found a hell of a case." He nudged her over a bit but frowned. "There's nothing here."
"Yeah...I was just...thinking." She turned to face and looked up at him. Her eyes studied his face, trying to convince herself he would understand her concern if she shared it. Right now, it was only a hint of doubt in her mind, with no proof and no clear reasoning behind why it was sticking with her.
His expression grew serious, his hand sliding down her shoulder to take her hand in his. "Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost."
"Maybe." she muttered.
"What?"
She shook her head, trying to blink away any emotion she could. "Nothing. Nothing, I'm fine."
He looked her over again, genuinely unsure what she was thinking about. It had been a while since he had seen that far away expression or that very clear, terrible attempt at a lie. He didn't press it. Dean took her other hand in his and encouraged her to her feet. "You wanna take a break then. You're not getting anything done, watch some mindless TV with me."
She let him tug her to the living room and pull her on to his lap after he sat down. She felt awkward, like a dog that didn't realize it was no longer a puppy. "I think I'm too tall for this to work comfortably."
"Not from my perspective" Dean pressed his face against her chest.
His reverence for her body bordered on infatuation and if she thought too much about it, made her feel too self-conscious. Most of the time it was flattering though. "Yeah, okay...I'm just gonna..." She slid off his lap, settling on the sofa next to him, her legs still extended over his. But she wiggled her butt against his leg laid down. "That's better."
"I guess." He took in her lean form, "I was fond of the other view."
She reached up to lace her fingers through his. "Haven't you seen enough of them today?"
Dean pulled an exaggerated face of disbelief. "Not when they're always so happy to see me."
"They're happy to see you?"
"Yeah, they know I'm gonna be so good to them."
Mae laughed as she traced mindless patterns with her thumb on the palm of his hand. The mood didn't seem right to turn things physical right then. His free hand glided gently over her thigh. Not quite platonic, not quite romantic. They sat in companionable silence, watching TV for a while, not really paying attention to the show. Mae's mind kept wandering back to the kitsune and what it had said about her. She tried to shake off the thoughts, but they kept creeping back in.
"You sure you okay?" Dean asked, noticing her lack of connection with anything.
"Yeah," she replied with a sigh.
"You just seem really far away."
Mae hesitated. He would dismiss it out of hand. It was something a random creature told her, and it was far more likely it was just trying to manipulate her. She knew his arguments. She didn't want to tell him. But he looked at her with such concern. She supposed if there was any truth to this and he ended up having to hunt her, he might as well know up front. "When we were driving home, the kitsune said something to me...about not being human."
Dean's brows furrowed in confusion. "Yeah, it's a kitsune possessing a human. Why would it think you would get mixed up on that?"
"Not-no, not it, me. I'm not human. I don't know," she admitted, with a hasty shrug.
"It could barely talk with us Mae. Who knows how much was gibberish, lies, or whatever. You shouldn't worry about it."
He wasn't wrong. There were plenty of reasons to not believe the thing. Mae couldn't even explain why she couldn't shake the thought. She knew he would point all of those things out. She didn't reply.
"You're clearly a human woman." He disentangled his hand from her, then pressed his hand to her stomach firmly, as if that would confirm it for her. "What else could you possibly be? Every supernatural thing has its weakness-holy water, silver, copper, blades, salt-babe, you handle it every day without issue."
"I don't know, Dean, I really hate smooth jazz. You could probably kill me with that."
"See, normal human woman. Is that's what's really bothering you?"
Mae shrugged. "You asked me what I was thinking about. Well, that's it."
"C'mon, you know you can't listen to these things. Even if this isn't evil or trying to take us out, they still manipulate people. You're not some inhuman anything."
"I'm not..." she closed her eyes, "You have to admit, there are some things that make sense about it."
"No, I don't because it doesn't. Mae, what exactly makes you think you're not human?"
He sounded angrier than she anticipated. She thought he would be annoyed, maybe even a little amused that it was bothering her, but not mad. "I sometimes see this old woman other people can't see. It's...some creatures can possess me, but others can't."
"That's...nothing. You specifically take precautions against possession, some things just have more juice. And that old woman... she could be just a hallucination. It always happens under stress, right? You're not seeing her right now are you?"
"No." She smiled a bit to herself. "I don't need a speech on...whatever this is. It's not like I'm endlessly dwelling on it. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But what if it's true? What if I'm a danger to everyone around me?"
"I don't need this too." He grumbled.
"I'm so sorry for being such a burden after a really shit week. I'll go right back to stroking your ego and having sex whenever you want."
Mae moved to leave but Dean tried to still her. "Mae, that's not what I mean... are you sure you aren't making something out of nothing here? Are you just looking for something to be wrong? I don't need to look out for you too."
"You asked me to keep less to myself. I answer your question honestly and you make it out like it's so hard to just listen to me and then dismiss my concerns like I'm a making it up." Mae's anger tapered as she watched far more complex emotions mix in his eyes. "And what the hell are you talking about? You don't need to look out for me? You always look out for everyone."
Dean ran a hand through his hair and looked away from her. "My not dying messed everything up."
Sitting all the way up now, Mae moved his chin back towards her with delicate fingers on his chin. "What-Dean, I'm not following you at all here."
It had been eating at him, what his father told him in the hospital. It was an impossible request and who was he supposed to talk about it with? Who would understand? He knew that wasn't Mae's question. He knew he should have focused on her but if she wasn't human, then was it his responsibility to take her out too?
"Any way you look at this Red, I'm not supposed to be here. You and Sam brought me back." He swallowed, "Dad, did something but...I should have died. A couple of times now. And people keep giving up their lives for me. And why? I don't get it I don't understand any of it."
Mae leaned in to him, cupping his face and stroking her thumb over his cheek. He turned his face slightly to let his lips press against her palm "Dean," her voice was soft, "You're not-"
"I can't kill you and my brother. I can't-why is that my responsibility now?"
"I uh...you're making some leaps and bounds here I don't get but I am not asking you to kill me. If that's something you're considering because of an offhand comment, I'll specifically ask you not to."
"I don't want someone else to do it."
"Me either. Why is this where your brain jumped? It's-"
Whatever else she was going to say was cut off by Sam's quiet, "Hey guys, is there something I could eat up here?"
They hadn't heard Sam come upstairs. Dean wasn't sure how much his brother had heard and hoped that his usual inclination towards confrontation was the sign that he hadn't heard any of it. He also knew the tears were just about threatening to spill. This was a difficult enough conversation to have with Mae, especially when he hadn't shared key details. This was not the time to have it with Sam.
"Yeah, sure. What do you want?" Mae said, swinging her legs of Dean's. She stood and crossed to Sam. When she cupped Sam's cheek, it was a distinctly maternal gesture, as she looked over him. He didn't look too much worse for the wear.
Dean was pretty sure she was blocking his brothers line of sight as best she could while he collected himself, for which he was grateful, even if it wasn't her main idea.
"I don't know. Whatever you have."
Mae nodded. "Okay, yeah. C'mon, sit down. I'll make some soup. Sound good?"
